OPTIONS : Slim Jeans and Ts With a Slogan
Hankie-Panky
At a recent lecture in Santa Monica, Australian environmentalist Helen Caldicott held up a plain white cotton handkerchief and asked why more Americans don’t use one. More than 6 million trees are cut down annually, she said, just for the manufacture of disposable facial tissues.
Afterward, Lorelyn Eaves says, “I sat down with a friend, Jennifer Saltzman, and wondered what we could do to help solve the problem.”
Their answer was to start Studio Dry Goods, a line of recycled vintage handkerchiefs collected at swap meets and garage sales. Eaves calls their products “environmentally friendly.”
They may also turn out to be the forerunner of a trend. Several leading Hollywood men wear vintage hankies in recent movies, such as Eddie Sparks (James Caan) in “For the Boys” and Bugsy Siegel (Warren Beatty) in “Bugsy.”
Studio Dry Goods hankies, priced $12 and up for a set of three, are carried at Auntie Barbara’s antiques in Beverly Hills and Pavilion at Tanner Market in Pasadena.
Recession Proof
This year may be remembered for its downwardly mobile fashions. Over the past six months, new labels called Poor House, Recession Wear, Anti Job Wear and Poorwear have been introduced. Their specialty is price-sensitive T-shirts, most of them $15 or less, with graphics that poke fun at the economy.
Recession Wear was introduced last winter by sometime actor Stanley DeSantis of North Hollywood. He created the line, available at Ron Ross in Studio City, after noticing the absence of the “R” word in President Bush’s State of the Union address.
“It was shocking,” recalls DeSantis, who frequently appears as Julie Brown’s MTV sidekick and recently played Medusa’s (a.k.a. Madonna’s) agent in the Showtime spoof “Medusa Dares to Be Truthful.” “There was a joke going around that George Bush wouldn’t use the word recession. And during the speech, he didn’t.”
One DeSantis shirt depicts a man in his underwear and robe under the heading, “How to lose your shirt and still be fashionable.”
The designs feature original photo artwork from the 1950s and 1960s because, DeSantis says, “if they were current they would be too depressing.”
Label Lobby
Since Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed last fall AB 101, the bill that proposed to outlaw job discrimination against homosexuals, the gay community has been divided on fashion. Some activists, including members of Act Up, the AIDS awareness group, are wearing labels such as “homo” and “lesbo” on their T-shirts. Others are opting for messages with a comic twist. “Straight, Not!” is a takeoff on the dimwitted humor of “Wayne’s World,” for example.
But the intention behind the slogans is the same.
“The idea is to take the power out of those derogatory words,” says Wayne Carr, a Queer Nation member who co-created one of the more explosive T-shirt messages on the market.
Which approach works best, humor or hard-core sloganing? Dennis Bevins, a buyer for Drake’s novelty shop on Melrose Avenue, says humor wins out. Drake’s sells about 10 dozen gay-oriented T-shirts a week.
Gays, and people buying gifts for gay friends, seem to be the best customers. Still, not everyone likes this out-of-the-closet idea. International Male carries the shirts in its store, but the management believes they’re too risque for the nationally distributed company catalogue.
Mark Simon of A Different Light, a West Hollywood shop, refers to the look as “tribal wear.” “It’s stuff you wear when you’re with your own, at gay gatherings or protest marches,” he says.
Slim Chance
Body-conscious California men might appreciate the slim-shaped pants now making their way to local stores.
Designers Isaac Mizrahi, Donna Karan and Jean-Paul Gaultier showed the narrow pants in their recent menswear collections. Now, moderately priced labels including Girbaud and Z. Cavaricci, hot names on high school campuses, are getting into slims.
“Store buyers are still a little afraid of it,” Jim Cavaricci, owner of the company that carries his name, says of the look. “(It’s) going to arrive gradually throughout the year.”
If the look catches on, it could help spur business. “Retailers are looking for that new thing, we think this is it,” says Cavaricci.
Some slim-liners might do more for economic recovery than others. Gianni Versace’s fleur-de-lis- patterned cotton-Lycra jeans, which go for $618 in the designer’s Beverly Hills store, probably won’t entice recession-ravaged consumers.
“We’re in the $60 to $70 range,” says Cavaricci, whose products sell at Bullock’s and the Broadway. “That’s still a price the market will bear.”
